Amber and Ashes Page 7

  The air was chill, for the sun was rarely allowed to break through the clouds that hung over Storm’s Keep. Exertion and the sudden flash of terror caused by her near fatal slip sent chill sweat rolling down Mina’s neck and breasts. The wind that keened endlessly among the rocks dried the sweat, set her to shivering. She had brought gloves, but she found she could not wear them. More than once, she was forced to dig her fingers into fissures and slits in order to drag herself from one stair up onto the next.

  Every step she took was precarious. Some of the stairs had large cracks running through them, and she had to test each one before she put her weight on it. Her leg muscles soon cramped and ached. Her fingers bled, her hands were raw, her knees scraped. Pausing to try to ease the pain in her legs, she looked upward, hoping she was near the end.

  Movement caught her eye. She caught a glimpse of a helmed head peering down at her from the top of the cliff. Mina blinked to clear her eyes of salt spray, and the head was gone.

  She did not doubt what she had seen, however.

  The stairs seemed to go on forever, climbing up to heaven, and at the top, Krell was waiting.

  Below her, the sea surged over glistening, sharp pointed boulders. Foam swirled on top of turgid water. Mina closed her eyes and sagged against the cliff face. She was worn out and she was only about halfway up the stairs. She would be exhausted by the time she reached the top, where she would have to face the death knight who had somehow been warned of her coming.

  “Zeboim,” Mina said with a curse. “She warned Krell. What a fool I am! So proud of myself to think that I had deceived a goddess, when all along it was the goddess who was deceiving me. But why would she alert him? That’s the question. Why?”

  Mina tried to puzzle this out. “Did she look into my heart and see the truth? Did she see I was coming to free Krell? Or is this just a whim of hers? Pitting the two of us against each other for an hour’s entertainment.”

  Thinking back to her conversation with the goddess, Mina guessed the latter. She pondered what to do and it was then a thought occurred to her. She opened her eyes, looked back up at the peak where she had seen Krell standing.

  “He could have killed me if he’d wanted to,” she realized. “Cast a spell on me, or if nothing else, dropped a rock on my head. He didn’t. He’s waiting to confront me. He wants to toy with me. Taunt me before killing me. Krell is no different from other undead. No different, even, than the god of death himself.”

  From months of commanding a legion of souls, Mina knew that the dead have a weakness—a hunger for the living.

  The part of Krell that remembered what it was to be alive craved interaction with the living. He needed to feel vicariously the life that he had lost. He hated the living, and so he would kill her eventually. But she could be assured that at least he would not slay her outright, before she had a chance to speak, to tell him her plan. The knowledge lent her hope and raised her spirits, though it did nothing to ease the cramps in her legs or the bone-numbing chill. She had a long and dangerous trek ahead of her and she had to be ready, both physically and mentally, to meet a deadly foe at the end of it.

  The name of Chemosh came, warm to her numb lips. She sensed the god’s presence, sensed him watching her.

  She did not pray for help. He had told her he had none to give, and she would not demean herself by begging. She whispered his name, held it fast in her heart to give her strength, and placed her foot carefully on the next stair, testing it.

  The stair held firm, as did the next. Gaining that stair, she had her eyes on her footing, watching where she was going, using her hands to feel her way along the cliff face. Inching her hands along, she was startled to feel nothing, so startled that she almost lost her grip. A narrow fissure split the rock wall.

  Balancing precariously on the stair, Mina placed her hands on either side of the crack and peered inside. The gray light of day did not penetrate far into the darkness, but what she could see was intriguing—a smooth floor, obviously man-made, about three feet below where she stood. She could not see much beyond the floor, but she had the impression of a vast chamber. She sniffed the air. The smell was familiar, reminding her of something.

  A granary. She had just liberated the city of Sanction. Her men, busy securing the city, had come upon a granary. She had gone to inspect it, and this was the smell or close to it. In the Sanction warehouse, the grain had been recently put up and the smell was overwhelming. Here the smell was faint and mingled with mildew, but Mina was certain she had found the granary of the fortress of Storm’s Keep.

  The location made sense, for it was close to the dock where the grain would be unloaded from the ship. Somewhere at the top of the cliff there must be an opening, a chute down which they would have poured the grain. The granary would be empty now. It had been forty years since the Keep had been abandoned. Hundreds of generations of rats would have feasted off any stores the knights had left behind.

  Not that any of that mattered. What mattered was that she had found a way to slip inside the fortress, a way to take Krell by surprise.

  “Chemosh,” said Mina in sudden understanding.

  His name had been on her lips when she found the crack in the wall. She had not asked for his help, but he had granted it, and her heart beat fast with the knowledge that he wanted her to succeed. She eyed the crack in the wall. It was narrow, but she was slender. She could just possibly squeeze through it, although not while wearing the cuirass. She would have to take it off and that would leave her without any armor when she came to face the death knight.

  Mina hesitated. She looked up at the endless stairs, where, at the top, Krell was waiting. She looked into the granary—smooth, dry floor, a secret way inside the main part of the Keep. She had only to cast off the cuirass, marked with the symbol of Takhisis.

  Mina understood. “That is what you ask of me,” she said softly to the listening god. “You want me to cast off my last vestige of faith in the goddess. Put all my faith and trust in you.”

  Balancing precariously on the stairs, her chill fingers shaking, Mina tugged and pulled at the wet leather thongs that held the cuirass in place.

  Krell cursed himself for an idiot to allow himself to be seen like that. He cursed Mina, too, wondering what crazy notion had flown into the woman’s head to cause her to look up instead of down, cause her to look straight at him.

  “Zeboim,” Krell muttered, and he cursed the goddess, a curse he uttered almost every hour of every tortured day.

  He could no longer count on taking Mina by surprise. She would be ready for him, and while he didn’t really think that she could cause him any harm, he was mindful of the fact that this was the woman who had brought down Lord Soth, one of the most formidable undead beings in all the history of Krynn.

  It is better to overestimate the enemy than underestimate him had been one of Ariakan’s dictums.

  “I’ll wait for her at the top of the Black Stair,” Krell determined. “She’ll be worn out, too tired to put up much of a fight.”

  He did not want to fight her. He wanted to capture her alive. He always captured his prey alive—when possible. One hapless thief, drawn to Storm’s Keep by the rumor of the Dark Knights’ abandoned treasure, had been so terrified at the sight of Krell that he’d dropped dead at the death knight’s feet, a severe disappointment to Krell.

  He had confidence in Mina, however. She was young, strong, and courageous. She would provide him with a good contest. She might survive for days.

  Krell was about to leave Mt. Ambition and head back to Storm’s Keep when he heard a sound that would have stopped his heart if he’d had one.

  From down below came a woman’s terrified scream and the clanging, clattering of metal armor falling onto sharp rocks.

  Krell dashed to the end of the promontory, peered over the edge. He cursed again and smashed his fist into a boulder, cracking it from top to bottom.

  The Black Stairs were empty. At the base of the cliff, almost lo
st to sight in the frothing, bubbling water, Krell could see floating in the sea a black cuirass, adorned with a lightning-struck skull.

  er scream echoing back from the cliff face, Mina watched the black cuirass and helm strike the rocks below and go bounding off into the water. Her vision obscured by the gray half-light of the storm, she could not see at this distance that the armor had been empty when it plummeted off the stairs and now it was lost to sight in the lashing waves. She hoped that Krell’s vision was no better.

  Mina sucked in her breath and squeezed her body through the crack in the rock wall. Even without the cuirass, she barely made it, and for one frightening moment, she was wedged tight. A desperate wriggle freed her and she dropped lightly to the floor. She paused to catch her breath, wait for her eyes to adjust to the darkness, and think how good it was to have her feet on a firm, level plane. How good it was to be out of the chill wind and away from the salt spray.

  Mina dried her hands as best she could on the tail of her shirt, rubbing them to restore the circulation. She had no armor and no weapon. She had tossed not only the cuirass and helm into the ocean, but also, after a moment’s hesitation, she’d thrown away the morning star—thrown away the eager, innocent child who had gone searching for the gods and found them.

  Mina had believed in Takhisis, obeyed her commands, endured her punishment, done the goddess’s bidding without question. She had kept her faith in Takhisis when everything had started to go wrong, fighting against the doubt that gnawed at her like rats in the grain. By the end, her doubts had eaten up all her stores, so that when her faith should have been strongest, when she should have been prepared to sacrifice herself for the sake of the goddess, all that was left was chaff. Mina had known wrenching sorrow then, sorrow for her loss, and she experienced something of the same sorrow as she threw the last vestiges of her belief in the One God into the sea.

  Innocence was gone. Unquestioning faith was gone. Thus she had dared to ask Chemosh, “What will you give me?” Though she had now given him proof that she belonged to him, she would not be his puppet to dance at his command, nor yet his slave to grovel at his feet. Standing alone in the darkness of Storm’s Keep, Mina listened. She was not listening for the voice of the god to tell her what to do. She listened to her own voice, to her own counsel.

  The Age of Mortals. Perhaps this is what the wise meant, what Chemosh meant. A partnership between god and man. It was an interesting premise.

  The dim light of gray day made its way through the crack in the wall and poked through other, smaller gaps. As her eyes grew accustomed to the shadows, Mina could see most of the chamber. It was, as she had guessed, a room meant for storage, not only for grain but for other supplies.

  A few wooden boxes and crates stood on the floor, their lids pried off, the contents spilled. Mina could picture the knights, in their eager haste to leave Storm’s Keep to begin their conquest of Ansalon, ripping open crates to see what they contained, making certain they left behind nothing of value. She glanced at the boxes as she passed them, heading toward an iron-banded door located at the end of the room. She noticed some dust-covered, rusted tools, such as blacksmiths used, and a few bolts of woolen cloth, now moth-eaten and mildewed. There had been rumors for years that the knights had left behind stores of treasure. The rumors made sense, for the knights would not have flown to battle on dragonback carrying chests of steel coins. But if so, the treasure was not here. As she walked, her boots crunched on dried rat dung and half-eaten kernels, all that was left of the might of the Dark Knights of Takhisis.

  Mina picked up a prybar. If the door to the granary was locked, she would need a tool to force the lock open. She hoped she would not have to resort to that. Krell must think her dead, killed in her fall off the stairs, and she didn’t want to do anything to rouse his suspicions. Although she didn’t know for sure, she guessed that the death knight still retained his power of hearing and even above the keening of the wind—the wail of a goddess’s grief and fury—Krell might be able to detect the sound of someone beating at an iron lock with an iron bar.

  When Mina reached the door, she put her hand on the handle and gave a gentle push. To her relief, the door swung open. Not surprising, when she considered it. Why bother to lock the door on an empty storage room?

  The door opened into a hall, with the same paved stone floor and rough-hewn walls. The hall was much darker than the storage room. No cracks in the walls. She had no torch and no way to light one. She would have to feel her way.

  Mina summoned from memory the map of the fortress that she left safely stowed in the boat. Prior to setting out on this adventure, she had traveled to the city of Palanthas to pay a visit to the city’s famed library. There she had asked one of the Aesthetics for a map of Storm’s Keep. Thinking she was a reckless treasure seeker, the earnest young Aesthetic had tried very hard to dissuade her from risking her life in such a foolhardy adventure. She had insisted, and by the rules of the library, which stated that all knowledge was available to anyone who sought it, he had brought her the requested map—a map that had been drawn by Lord Ariakan himself.

  The granary had not been marked on the map. Ariakan had included only those areas he considered important—meeting rooms, barracks, housing, etc. Mina had only the vaguest idea where she was, and that came mainly from knowledge of where she wasn’t.

  The inlet was on the south side of the island, which meant that she had entered the granary from the south, and was currently facing east. Since the granary was built adjacent to the stairs, she did not think it likely that the hall would extend to the south, for that was a dead end. She turned north as she exited, shutting the granary door behind her.

  It was not likely Krell would come down here, but if he did, he would not find the door standing open, indicating someone had been snooping about. But by shutting the door, she shut off all the dim light from the granary, leaving her in complete darkness. She could see nothing in front of her or on either side. She shuffled her feet along the floor in an effort to avoid stumbling over some unseen obstacle. She hoped that she would not have to go far in the darkness.

  She had not taken many steps when she noticed that the floor began to rise steeply.

  “A ramp,” she said to herself, envisioning slaves pushing wheelbarrows filled with grain.

  She continued up the ramp and walked straight into a door that started to swing open when her boot hit it. Her heart lurching, she grabbed for the door and held it shut. She’d caught a brief glimpse of what lay beyond that door—a courtyard, open to view. For all she knew, Krell might be out in that courtyard, taking an afternoon stroll.

  If it was afternoon. Mina had lost all sense of time, and that was something else to worry about. She did not want to be caught alone with Krell on Storm’s Keep when night fell. Opening the door a crack, she peered out.

  The parade ground, paved with cobblestones, was empty. It was vast and Mina recognized it from the map. The parade ground lay in the shadow of a tall tower, and now Mina knew exactly where she was. By its shape and location, the tower was the Central Tower, a massive structure that housed the main meeting rooms, dining halls, servant quarters. Lord Ariakan had his chambers in that Tower. There was also reputed to be a chamber that had led directly to the plane on which Takhisis had once dwelt. Not far from that was the Tower of the Lily, where the elite Knights of the Lily had their barracks, and at the opposite end of the fortress stood the Tower of the Skull, home to the arcane wing of the Dark Knights. Scattered about among the three were a number of outbuildings.

  The flat, two-dimensional map Mina had viewed in the library of Palanthas had not conveyed the immensity of the fortress. She had not realized, on setting out, how big it was or how much ground it covered. And she had no idea in which building Krell had taken up residence. Gazing across the windswept expanse of the parade ground, Mina began to wonder if her idea of sneaking into the fort had been a good one.

  “I could spend days wandering about this pla
ce searching for him,” she realized. “No food and no water. Not daring to sleep for fear Krell might murder me.”

  All things considered, it might have been better for her to have taken her chances and confronted him on the stairs.

  Mina shook her head, shook away doubt. “Chemosh brought me here. He will not forsake me.”

  Her confidence bolstered, Mina gave the door a shove and started to step out of the door and walk across the parade ground.

  And there was Krell, emerging from behind a wall, coming from the direction of the cliffs where she had last seen him.

  Mina froze, not daring to move or breathe.

  Krell walked right past her, not six feet away from her. If she had left her hiding place an eyeblink earlier, she would have blundered into him.

  The death knight was hideous to look upon. The burning torment of his accursed life blazed red from the shadows of the eye slits of his ram’s skull helm. She knew that if he took off that helm, he would be more hideous still, for there was nothing beneath it. Nothing except the hole cut out of existence where his life had been, and that hole was blacker than the darkness inside a sealed tomb buried in a forgotten crypt.

  His jointed and faceted armor—decorated with the skull and the lily—was stained with the blood Zeboim had drained from him over many days of torture. His blood glistened red, fresh as the day he’d shed it in screaming agony. The lashing rain never washed the blood away. He left bloody footprints as he walked.